1999 Magic: The Gathering World ChampionshipsFinals Recap

The final match of the 1999 Magic: The Gathering World Championships pitted Germany's Kai Budde, who had already clinched the Player of the Year race, against American Mark Le Pine.

In the first game, Budde started slow, with only a Mountain on his first turn. However, the second turn saw a City of Traitors, two Grim Monoliths, and finally, a Mishra's Helix. Luckily for Le Pine, he was able to play a Fireslinger on his next turn before Budde could lock down his land with the Helix.

Over the next six turns, the Fireslinger attacked for one point a turn, while Le Pine was unable to cast any other spells. Budde, meanwhile drew two Voltaic Keys and a Temporal Aperture. Eventually, the Aperture provided Budde with a Wildfire, killing the pesky Fireslinger and all of the land on the table. At this point, Le Pine was at 20 life with only a Cursed Scroll on the table, while Budde was at 7 life, with an impressive array of artifacts. On the next turn, the Aperture put a Covetous Dragon into play, and Le Pine conceded a turn later.

Kai Budde 1 - Mark Le Pine 0

By the second turn of game two, it was already clear that Le Pine was in trouble. He had two mountains and a Cursed Scroll in play, while Budde had two Mountains, a tapped Voltaic Key, a tapped Grim Monolith, and a Thran Dynamo. On Le Pine's turn, had played a Mountain and then had to decide what to Pillage. The goal was to reduce Budde's mana enough so that he couldn't cast a Covetous Dragon (cost 4R) or a Wildfire (cost 4RR). Although the general feeling in the hall was that the Dynamo was a more attractive option, Le Pine chose to destroy the Voltaic Key, to prevent Budde from untapping his Grim Monolith. On Budde's turn, he played a Mountain and tapped it and the Thran Dynamo for a Covetous Dragon. Le Pine briefly had hopes of destroying all of Budde's artifacts to get rid of the Dragon, but Budde played a Fire Diamond, and kept the Dragon alive until it killed Le Pine.

Kai Budde 2 - Mark Le Pine 0

In game three, Kai Budde started out with a City of Traitors and a Grim Monolith. "Second turn Covetous Dragon?" asked Le Pine. Sure enough, Budde played a Mountain and a Covetous Dragon on his second turn. Le Pine smiled, seeming to accept his fate, and his situation didn't improve when Budde's third-turn Masticore joined in. The game was quickly over, and Kai Budde was the 1999 World Champion.